


How Far We've Come (we've come too far)

by AmunetMana



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Recovered Memories, Unreliable Narrator, established signless/disciple, hinted darkleer/disciple (pale), mentions of dancestors, non-con pale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 21:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4278195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmunetMana/pseuds/AmunetMana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Signless is not the only one to remember Beforus, merely the first.</p><p>But he never could have expected <i>this</i> outcome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Far We've Come (we've come too far)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mistystarshine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mistystarshine/gifts).



How Far We’ve Come (we’ve come too far)

 

It begins small.

 

It’s as tiny as a drop of blood in the rainbow oceans of your planet, illuminated green and pink in turn by the moons.

 

But like water returning to the sea, and like blood returning upon blood to the mother grub, everything escalates and everything grows. Which is how even with those smallest of beginnings, you find yourself here. Here being with the Condesce grabbing you face, and pulling you close, and for one blank moment in the midst of your meta nonsense you think she's going to kiss you. Instead she releases her weight like someone flipped a switch, and you are almost crushed under a whole lot of sea troll, who is staining the side of your face pink with tears.

 

"Kankri," she whispers beside your ear, and your brain glows white hot like iron behind your eyes.

 

_How does she know that name?_

 

There is no way she should know that name.

 

Kankri is your name, for all it isn't the name your Rosa has given you. Kankri is your name in the way Porrim _was_ Rosa's, the way Meulin was your beloved, and the weeping, terrifying troll still clinging to you was Meenah.

 

You know all this, and you know that the world that gave you those names is the reason you preach love and acceptance. The reason you can look beyond one system, beyond _any_ system that dictates a hierarchy and see not a ladder, but a wheel. The reason you can believe in change.

 

But that doesn't change the fact that hearing the _fucking Condesce_ call you Kankri is _really fucking weird_ , and so all thoughts of love and acceptance and wheels fly out of the window, and you punch the Empress of Alternia squarely in the gut.

 

She makes a sound like a hiccup and a wheeze, but rather than her hold loosening enough for you to escape as you'd hoped, her grip tightens, and you can't run. Then she recovers, peels herself back to stare at you incredulously, before throwing back her head to laugh.

 

You are so. Fucking. Confused.

 

==> Be you seeing your life before your eyes

 

 _One time, you did slip up and call your Disciple "Meulin", and the taste of the name on your tongue felt horribly wrong. It left the rest of the night feeling off, as the Disciple tried to hold you and comfort you, feeling nothing but amusement at the strange slip up, and worried for your response. For once, her touch didn’t help. Nothing helped. When you first remembered Beforus it wasn’t details, merely the burning desire to_ change _, and the intangible feeling of a world where you were never hunted just for the brightness of your blood. Curled up next to your Rosa, details began to filter in, and_ Porrim _was suddenly a name in your head. You never used it, except for one single moment where the two of you had been fighting. You never fought, especially not over your dreams of peace, but she wanted you safe, and she wanted you to stay back, and it had just spilled out,_ “Stop trying to control me Porrim!”

_You’d been horrified, as speaking the name out loud had unleashed a torrent in your mind,_ and she hadn't deserved it you didn't mean it _and you flung yourself at Rosa, burying your face in her robes and bursting into dangerous red tears. Sometimes, afterwards and even still now, you look at her, see the way she looks at you, and think somewhere she too still remembers. She never tried to hold you back again. Not unless it truly was that stupid, bad enough that even_ you _knew you shouldn’t really be doing it. But she never said anything, and nothing else changed. She was still your Rosa, and you were still her child. Occasionally other trolls would try to guess at the quadrant (long before the Disciple) and you’d look at her with tense eyes, waiting for Porrim’s words to emerge._

_Porrim wanted to be moirails. Or to cull you, you were never sure, but imagining she wanted you pale was a far less painful thought than imagining her wishing to cull you. Rosa just wrapped an arm around you and made nonsense excuses that askers knew were lies, but took as a sign to stop asking. Rosa would kiss your forehead and you’d be on your way._

_Then you met the Psiioniic, and the name_ Mituna _stared you back, and then you met the Disciple (as_ nameless _as you were_ signless _, back then) and you hear_ Meulin _, but think nothing of it._

_It is the first time you see the Empress – actually see her, face to face as she's making a speech – that the floodgates open, and you see everyone. There is still so much you don’t remember, but there are eleven trolls living in your memories, and three of them are your closest companions, and a fourth is_ her Imperious Condescension _. You used to be friends with her. You all did. Your Disciple rubs your back with frantic hands as later that night you run for the trees, and can barely stop before you vomit everywhere. She tries to ask what is wrong, but the Empress is not a topic you discuss much outside of denouncing and blaspheming her name, and you say nothing, make stupid excuses no one believes, but still pretends to accept as they see the look on your face._

_It’s not just names anymore, but faces, distorted like looking through ripples of water, and personalities that you’re not sure you want to understand. Because to understand them means to throw everything you have away, and to lose everyone you hold dear. Porrim was hard enough to hold in your head, but to see everyone else there too is so much worse, especially when with sweeps of experience and knowledge from Alternia,_ Kankri’s _life is suddenly far from the paradise you’d thought it was. For more friendless than he and you had both believed, too._

_Meulin, you know with certainty, would never love Kankri, would never be with Kankri the way the Disciple is with you. Quadrants have been a mystery to you since the moment you first saw them scrawled on a wall, and Kankri was no more knowledgeable._ (Not in the way that counted.) _Quadrants had been Meulin’s life. The thought of her remembering, the thought of her going back…it haunts you, and you want nothing more than to keep her memories from her as long as you can, and you feel terrible for it._ Selfish _as you preach for a better word, only to try to keep her from the things…from the_ people _that once made her happy._

_You think that she would probably leave you if she knew the truth about what you were like, and what she was like. You think they’d_ all _leave you if they could, if they knew who they were._

_What they’d thought of you, in another life._

_In the end, you should have been more worried about the danger of the present than the dangers of the past._

_It is as you’re preparing to cross an expanse of deserts as the sun is rising, that soldiers in sleek black suits and helmets appear, and seize you all. They are imperial soldiers, you know, their uniforms accented in their blood colours and their horns protruding up from the shiny helmets, far finer and suited to blocking out the sun than the scraps of fabric your family has cobbled together._

_You expect them to simply pull back those rags, tear down your cloaks and rip away the goggles, expose you to the sun and watch you burn to death there and then. Simple. Clean._

_You can already feel the heat, hands encircling your wrists like hot metal._

_But instead you are separated, your Disciple screaming just as loudly as you as you're ripped apart from each other. Your mother glows brightly as she fights, and the Psiioniic sparks angrily until they clamp suppressants onto him - stamped with a pink seal. If you feel sick at the sight, he looks a thousand times worse. Until a bag is over your head, followed by a fist, and you see and hear no more as you fade into darkness._

~

 

==> Be you with a pounding headache

 

You wake up.

 

Everything hurts, and you wish you hadn't.

 

Then you remember your friends and family are gone from you, and no matter how you force your eyelids to peel back, to peer into the darkness and try to understand your surroundings, you cannot see them. You wish, even more that you were not awake. That this was a horrible daymare, but all the same will be gone when you really wake.

 

It's not, they're not. You're alone.

 

You force yourself up as fast as you can, because this is awake, and you've got to deal with it. You have been stripped of your gear, left only in leggings, although as you scramble a little more you find your cloak. You wrap it around your body like a security blanket, like you're a wriggler all over again.

 

Further investigation, heavy curtains surround you. That...is unexpected. As you push at them, a split appears, and light spills in. You flinch away in horror, thinking it's daylight, but a delicate and totally stupid wave of your hand through the beam shows it doesn't burn. Artificial light, then. Your fingers curl around the edge of the curtains, and you suck in a deep, tight breath, and peel them back in order to peer out.

 

It's a room in garish pink and gold, and it hurts your eyes, but it isn't a prison cell. At least, not any kind of cell you imagined you might find yourself in. You slide yourself out from behind the curtains, which once you are out, and have the chance to exam more closely, appear to section off an incredibly fancy pile. _Highblood life,_ you think, a little derisively. Nothing was ever decadent enough. They could pile up all the treasures they liked to share with their quadrants, but if it wasn't the right partner, no amount of money thrown about would be able to make it better. _If it's the right partner, a pile of rubble or a threadbare blanket is more than enough._ Your heart aches for the Disciple, skipping in fear as even now your prison has grown, she is still not in it.

 

It is thinking of her that drives you forward to the door to try the handle. It's locked. Of course. You're about to force it until you hear a murmur, and pressing your ear to the door reveals that there are people the other side. You can't make out what they voices are saying, but they are not your family. Most likely guards. You turn around to rest your back against the door with a heavy sigh, and as you look up, you feel like the world has just punched you in the gut.

 

The wall behind you, at just the wrong angle to be seen from the pile, is covered with fabric, pinned to the wall, in every fabric you've ever seen and then some you haven't, draped and wound about and bundled into corners. And every scrap of it the bright, dangerous shade of your blood.

 

There are pieces of paper pinned up against the fabric, but you can't focus on them as your vision goes hideously blurry and your stomach lurches back and forth. You've never seen so much red before. And honestly you never thought you would, until it was your blood draining out of your body, and it is too much. You are terrified and panicking, and you cannot take your eyes away from the fabric. Was it put there to do this to you? A new kind of torture? It is bright and burning against your retinas, and there is a mumbling noise that you realise is just the word "fuck" over and over again, dripping from your lips.

 

You force yourself, with excruciating effort, to rip your eyes from the display, staring down into the plush pink of the floor instead. This is your low - the Empress' pink is preferable to that much candy red. It looked like someone have painted the wall with you blood, and for a moment you had wondered if you were not already dead.

 

You are crawling back to the pile, refusing to let your gaze lift, when the doors open, and your instincts refuse to let your face do anything but snap up to the figure who has entered the room.

 

Dripping in gold, studded with pink stones and dressed in sleek black, the Condesce stands before you. You apparently don't rate as threatening enough for her to even carry her 2x3dent. She looks down at you with piercing eyes, face still and smooth, neither smiling nor frowning. Then, abruptly, liquid wells in her eyes, her expression breaks up, and she lunges forward, her hands curling around your cheeks. Your mind blanks.

 

~

 

==> Be present you

 

"You motha-glubber."

 

The Condesce rubs her stomach where you hit her, in such a way that it lets you know you did shit all to hurt her, and she is merely humouring you with the motion.

 

"I - what?"

 

Words. What are words?

 

_Kankri is a word._

 

_I don't want that word._

 

"You were right," the Condesce says, and leans back from you, resting back on the balls of her feet, perfectly balanced. Her face is still tear-stained but she is brilliant and unashamed, face painted with naked expression. She looks happy. Enlightened. And also pissed off. She jabs you in the chest with one luxuriously long, gilded nail. "You basshole, how dare you."

 

"You called me Kankri," you say dumbly, the art of actually responding to the words funnelled into your earhole lost to you in the wake of this information.

 

She laughs again, exposing the smooth slop of her neck. "I did! And you clam even call me Meenah if you like." She jerks her head to the doors, "just don't let dem bitches hear you, ya dig? Or they'll all start carping and I'd hate to cull good staff."

 

You're still staring in what might be horror, or just sheer stupidity, and the smile slips off her face as she rolls her eyes. "Guppy, I'm happy you're not whaling on me an all, but some kinda response would be nice."

 

"The. The wall. Kankri. _Kankri_ – "

 

"Oh, you saw that!" The Condesce looks over, and her face says she's pleased with her work. "The details kept slipping away, so I had to do something to make myself remember. Staring at your ugly-bass glub was the only thing to shellp."

 

You stare at her blankly, and she sighs. "Blood. Glub. I meant blood. I can't alwhales be on point with the punning, ocray? Shit takes effort!"

 

"Why...why put me in here with the bl- with the red?" You manage, and she looks at you funny.

 

"Thought you'd like the pictures, glubber." Your face remains blank, and she looks at you harder, like she might be able to will understanding into your head. "You. Did sea the pictures. Right?"

 

You force yourself up onto your feet, walking around the Condesce slowly to look at the wall once again. The colour makes you flinch immediately, but you swallow down the horror that bubbles up, and push yourself closer, and you notice again the pieces of paper pinned up. There are more than you thought, and the spreading of the red was not in fact done to mimic blood, but instead to frame clusters of images.

 

Images from your dreams.

 

The Condesce isn't the greatest artist, but what she's drawn is clear enough. You are - Kankri is there. Meenah is there, with her hair shorn for all but her trailing braids. Meulin, far softer and sweeter than the Disciple has ever been. Mituna with a helmet, Porrim with her head just tilted to the side, hair falling down across her shoulder. You make yourself look away from that one quickly. You move to a different cluster, and find the entire thing comprised of pictures of Aranea, smeared with blue a few shades off but close enough for you to understand its presence there.

 

There is far more of Aranea than any other troll. Second most common is you, scrawls and scrawls of you. No blood close enough to smear by you, but plenty of the vivid fabric pinned in place. You’re beginning to get used to the shade, and you don’t know whether that’s a good thing or not.

 

“Are they all here?” you ask. “Not – not on the wall. On Alternia.”

 

You don’t look, but you imagine the Condesce's eyes flicker to the pictures of Aranea too.

 

“Some. Probs all? But it’s hard as shit finding the whole buncha you losers. Luckily, being the Empress does have its perks!”

 

She sounds smug, and you shudder, and bit down on your lip. Her world is poisoned and contorted, and she doesn’t seem to care. Well…that would make sense for Meenah, actually. She never did like culling much. Beforus culling. Almost as little as you did, although you both had – obviously – vastly different ways of dealing with it.

 

In retrospect, you think, the Signless and the Condesce are no more than the logical extremes of the trajectories you were both placed on. You should say something to her, take this opportunity to protest, but something stops you. Your thoughts are beginning to race again, and you close your eyes, blocking out the red. Everything slows in your brain, and you claw yourself back to the edge of your new, hysterical reality as best you can. One problem at a time, one solution at a time. Any more and you may just be sick. Besides, if she remembers, then maybe, _maybe_ things can be different. Maybe she'll understand. She hasn't culled you yet, after all.

 

“This is so weird,” you choke out, hoarse, but resigned. There is a cackle behind you, and you finally turn to look at the Condesce again.

 

“If you think that's weird,” the Condesce grins at you with shark teeth, the tears cleared from her face, “just wait till you see my Orphaner.”

 

~

 

==> Be you on a boat

 

“No _fucking way_.”

 

“Aww well, ain’t that a sweet way to greet an’ old frond.”

 

“Oi, no fish puns for you, sucker.”

 

The Orphaner Dualscar clams up – _dammit_ – at the interjection from his Empress, and it’s when he turns purple around the gills that you are reminded the most, and the least, of Cronus Ampora. He looks at her, put out and vaguely annoyed ( _Cronus_ ), but inclines his head ( _Orphaner_ ). Your eyebrows only shoot up further. The three of your are on a ship, _his_ ship, your requests to be reunited with your family denied. Her flippant disregard of your desire to see them and assure their safety reeks of the Condesce…obviously, you think. You are not Kankri. You must not make the mistake of thinking that she is Meenah. In retrospect, you can see why the Condesce wanted you alone for this; your expression alone is apparently hilarious enough to have her in peals of cackling laughter rocking back on her heels. Perhaps she thought the confusion of your family would detract from the moment. (And that is more Meenah.)

 

Dualscar – Cronus – _Dualscar_ – sighs, and looks at you again. Looks you up and down. You want to talk him down for it immediately ( _Kankri_ ) or tell him where he can shove his wandering gaze ( _Signless_ ) but the difference in it stops both. It’s not lewd as it once was, but clinical. He’s sizing up the changes Alternia has brought to you; just as you have been looking for the signs of wear on him. To be honest, the only reason you haven’t looked further is because the twin scars on his face, stretching from left temple to the furthest point of his right cheek, absorb all of your attention. Compared to the tiny scars you once knew, these are monstrous, and transform his face more than age and wear have. They divide his features, looking deep and vivid, royal violet against pale grey. Worn from the sea his face may be, he is still a highblood and the scars are at odds with his well-groomed appearance.

 

“You’re lookin’ better than I expected,” he says finally, and you jump at the sound of his voice. “Kinda amazed you survived the caves.”

 

“Who else would have mutant blood and be running around the planet preaching equality?” you ask, crossing your arms and raising an eyebrow. Dualscar actually cracks a smile now, and it contorts his scars and the features beneath them strangely. It’s a more honest smile than Cronus wore.

 

“Didn’t remember you back then, chief. Didn’t remember till reel recently.”

 

“Oi, what did I say?” The Condesce returns to your conversation, hands on her hips. You’re struck by how short you are compared to them both – although the Condesce is big besides Dualscar as well, hair and horns and heels all assisting her already incredible height. Dualscar does not seem to mind being towered over. You mind very much.

 

“Reel, real. What’s the difference?” Dualscar asks, and you can’t stop the laughter before a “ha!” bubbles out of you at the horrified look on his face ( _Dualscar)_ , and you slide your hand over your mouth. Dualscar doesn’t seem to know whether to smile with you ( _Cronus_ ) or return to his strange – and apparently customary – stoicism ( _Dualscar_ ). You're not certain if the exchange was actually funny or if you're just hysterical. You are all still trying to understand each other. You knew each other – or rather, the children you once were knew each other, and their memories demand to be seen, even as the three of you are strangers in this world, with expectations you do not know if the others will – or even have the ability to meet.

 

The Condesce says no more on puns, merely crooking a finger to have you follow her off the ship. You thinking nothing of it, and the sound of Dualscar barking orders behind you makes you jump. The ship is _his_ you realise all over again. _Well, duh_. But all the same it is not something you expected. Cronus didn’t have a ship, he didn’t have a _crew_. He didn’t have a whole adult life that – for all _you_ knew, had been going on centuries before you were even hatched.

 

You don’t turn back, and you try not to think on it.

 

You’re a horrible person for how little you want to deal with all this, and suddenly seeing your family again is the last thing you want, as the lines between Beforus and Alternia grow more and more blurred. You want to keep them as they are, how you know how to love them – how they know how to love you. You bite your lip, and speed up your steps to try and keep beside the Condesce as Dualscar does the same – only to linger a few steps behind. _So even violet bloods feel the weight of the hierarchy_.

 

“Is there anyone else?” you ask the Condesce. “Or did you search for all our former friends only to find the somewhat universally disliked seatroll you couldn’t keep yourself far enough away from?”

 

Out of the corner of your eye Dualscar throws his hands up, chin tilted back as if to implore the heavens for answers as to why he is subject to this treatment. It was almost _all_ Cronus. The Condesce hooked an arm around you, and you bumped into her calf – a strange experience you aren’t sure you like.

 

“Naw guppy, he’s just the finniest.”

 

You think Dualscar is probably repeating his gesture with even greater exaggeration.

 

“Next stop,” the Condesce is all teeth as she looks at you, “we be getting _religious._ ”

 

 _What_.

 

~

 

==> Be you hiding in a semi-public ablutions block

 

_Oh shit oh shit oh shit –_

 

~

 

==> Be you ten minutes ago

 

“Oh _shit_ ,” you breath out, and stare up at the palace that houses the cult of the Mirthful Messiahs. “No fucking guess who’s next, then,” you deadpan, and Dualscar (whom you fell back to walk besides as you failed to keep the Condesce’s pace) looks down at you with one eyebrow quirked up.

 

“You swear more now,” he observes evenly, and you roll your eyes.

 

“I swore plenty on Bef – before. Before now. Just not during sermons – it would have been inappropriate,” you say primly, and the other eyebrow rises to join the first on his face, but he asks no more, apparently satisfied with your answer. The Condesce doesn’t even bother to talk to you, simply striding into the building like she owns it (she probably does) and isn’t going to get murdered by one of the many purple bloods lurking in the corridors smeared with black and white across their faces (less certain).

 

Dualscar clearly feels as off–put as you, moving closer to you as you both follow the Empress. He doesn’t try to pull anything, and you really fucking wish you wouldn’t keep expecting it. You don’t enjoy feeling like the bad guy always assuming the worst in people this way – even if you do have a good reason for this one.

 

Somehow you make it to a pair of towering, blackened doors without losing any limbs or spilling any blood to the waiting trolls. On the way, you’d not just seem purple, but violets and indigos – the shades just fringing purple, but _still_. A powerful cult with plenty of followers, all heralding an angel of double death, and you’re a mutant in the very middle of them all. You think you’re permitted the shakes. Dualscar’s shade may be closer, you think, but his grooming and heavy armour set him apart from those around him, dressed mostly in black and grey robes with violent slashes of their blood colours. Occasionally other blood colours too, and you almost hurl when you see greens and yellows close together. ( _Because these shades aren't part of the uniform. They're what stain them._ )

 

The fear of what lies behind you is enough to propel you unthinkingly forward as the doors are opened, following the Condesce into the large throne room.

 

You haven’t seen hers yet, but you like to think she wouldn’t want anyone else having one bigger than hers. Which means hers must be _pretty fucking enormous_ if it is to beat out the sight before you. The ceiling is vaulted and high, shadowy even as moonlight filters through high windows lines with purple curtains. Black beams travel down the walls, all of which are in the same shade – bar where they are covered with smears of blood. The wall directly in front of you can’t be seen for the blood painted across it, every hue you know bar your own, and the Condesce’s.

 

 

You’d always assumed there’s be at least some other mutants – even if they never made it past the caves.

 

Part of the wall is blocked off by a large throne, and the symbol worked into its design doesn’t surprise you. The sheer size of the troll sat on it _does_ surprise you. Kurloz had always been tall, but this troll is staggering, with horns that rise higher than the Empress’s own, twisting and curling. They look as though they have had designs carved into them. Kurloz is just as slender as you remember, but the strange oversized shapes of his clothes give the illusion that he is skeletal, and he has swapped out his original painted design for something a little more…well, shit scaring. A little late, it all clicks into place as you stare.

 

_The Grand Highblood._

_Kurloz became the Grand Highblood._

 

Your Disciple’s – Meulin’s matesprit – is the second most powerful troll on Alternia.

 

 _Shit_.

 

“HA!”

 

The voice is sudden, and booming, and unfamiliar. You realise, with sudden shock, that it is Kurloz’s voice – the voice you never heard when he was alive. His lips aren’t sewn shut.

“Mother _FUCK_ bitchtits. Is it a _competition_ all up in here? _Collect the memories_?” The Grand Highblood stares at you with a grin that has you taking a step back, only for Dualscar’s arm to catch you. Dualscar isn’t looking anywhere but the Grand Highblood, his face contorted in fear. You understand abruptly as tendrils of psychic energy suddenly squirm into your brain and you gasp out loud at the invasive sensation. Then it is gone as soon as it’s there, and the Grand Highblood’s laughter reverberates around you. You find yourself actually clinging to Dualscar, as hard as he’s holding onto you, your nails digging into each other’s skin. “I wonder,” the Grand Highblood’s voice continues, “Do I win cause mine are _higher_? Or do _you_ win cause you got the miracle mutant blood?”

 

_His?_

 

As you force your gaze away from him, two other trolls enter your vision. A hulking male with arrow horns pointing upwards, long black hair coiling over his shoulders. You recognise colour and symbol at once – Horuss. He looks strange, all in black armour. A real soldier, a far cry from the whimsical inventor Kankri remembers. The other figure is shorter and slighter, dressed in red as bright as your blood and –

 

And –

 

 

Shit shit shit.

 

Latula sees you, and her expression lights up in a weird, semi happy way that you don’t understand or want to see.

 

“Kankri?” she asks, and you’re not proud of what you do next.

 

Which is to sprint from the room, leaving behind the sounds of several voices calling for you, somehow worm you way around the trolls in the shadows, and are out of the building before you even left yourself _breathe_ again. Then it’s all you can do to get yourself to the nearest public ablution block, hurl into the load-gaper, and then sit on the floor hugging it behind a flimsy lockable door.

 

~

 

==> Be present you again

 

Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit.

 

Your thought process carries on like this for quite some time.

 

Until suddenly there is a banging on the fragile door, and you cringe against the load-gaper. You're resolved to stay silent, until -

 

"Signless? Signless, open the fuck up! I know you're in there, I can see your dumb cloak."

 

It's the Psiioniic. You drag yourself up, and open the door, something in you sagging with relief as you lay eyes on him. He looks unharmed, concerned and annoyed as is his norm, although the concern increases as he stares you down.

 

"We escaped," he says, "duh. It's like she wasn't even trying. When we couldn't find you, the Disciple thought she must have taken you with her."

 

Who the 'she' he mentions is is obvious, but your brain is so addled all you can think of is Latula. ( _Kankri. You think._ ) Then you straighten your thoughts, and your heart is instead warm at your Disciple's faith - not in your teachings, but in you. You would never leave them behind if you were able to escape alone, but that makes you the exception, not the rule. And against those odds, she still believes in you.

 

You throw your arms about the Psiioniic, and he only protests a little at the contact.

 

"They'll be looking for me," you tell him as you pull away, and he frowns,

 

"They?"

 

"...reinforcements, of a kind. They were in the subjuggulator hold last I knew. But they probably didn't stay there."

 

"The Dolorosa and Disciple are just outside," the Psiioniic begins, but that quickly becomes untrue as the Disciple bursts in through the door, evidently sick of waiting.

 

"Idiot!" Is how she greets you, winding her arms so tightly around you that you think she might be trying to strangle you a little. "My stupid beloved, next time you escape, try to find us instead of hiding out in grubby ablution blocks."

 

Her hands slip into yours naturally as she surveys the room with disdain, nose wrinkling. Nothing seems to matter anymore.

 

"We can go," you tell her, “but there are at least five of them, all higher than us."

 

She nods, pulling you from the room. Rosa envelopes you next, her embrace cool and familiar. She cups your face, and looks at you with concern. You release one of your hands from the Disciple, to rest over your mother's. "I'll be ok," you tell her, "but we need to go."

 

She nods - business as usual, and your world is together again with the three of them around you.

 

But the world, as you so often inexplicably forget, loves to shit on you. You are almost out of the city, with your family, ready to forget everything that's happened, when they catch up to you. The laughsassins are on you suddenly, clubs and blades both at your necks as you're collectively slammed into the ground. Your Disciple struggles and snarls, until one of them nicks her throat, and you cry out as she falls silent, olive trickling down to the neck of her tunic.

 

"Whale, bouy," comes the soft voice from behind you, and the laughsassin lets you twist your neck just enough to look up into the Empress's face. There is no Meenah to it now, only cool displeasure. Latula is beside her, her hands resting on the dragon head of a cane, and her expression is dispassionate and distant behind pointed red shades. The Grand Highblood, Dualscar and Horuss are a way behind, and you see Dualscar's gaze fix strangely on Rosa.

 

"No - "

 

And worse, the Grand Highblood focussing first on the Psiioniic, and then on you Disciple, who stares back uncomprehendingly.

 

The Condesce crouches beside you to force your gaze up to meet hers again. "Didn't expect you to be running like that," she snaps at you. "Guess I was showing a lil too much hospitality to my old pal, huh?"

 

She straightens, and waves a hand at the threshecutioners that appear to take over from the laughsassins. "Get them back to the palace, and put them somewhere they won't be getting the fuck outta again."

 

The threshecutioners salute her, and a crack at the back of your head renders you unconscious once again.

 

~

 

==> Be you an indeterminate amount of time later, with a splitting headache

 

You have no idea how long you've been out for, and your head is pounding like the Grand Highblood decided to take up permanent residence in there. You remember your circumstances quickly, and rather than jump to attention as you did before, you press your forehead hard against the hard floor, and pull your hood down as far as your horns will allow, grumbling and whining all the while. You don't want to deal with this. The Condesce, the Grand Highblood, the Orphaner...a long time ago, a far more innocent version of you would have been thrilled to know they had their memories, you would have told yourself surely, _surely_ that would mean they would understand, and begin to save your war run world together.

 

You want to dig yourself deeper, but there is the sound of footsteps, and the sound of metal on metal. You look up, and find yourself in a cell, with Latula standing outside the bars. You shiver. No more luxury rooms, and for what? For running away from the Condesce. Not even from her – from the memory of Latula. But the Condesce wouldn't see it that way – Meenah wouldn't either. You've insulted and defied the Empress. Not even a highblood would get away with that. And at the end of everything, you're faced with the memory you wanted to escape in the first place. Latula is fitting a key into the lock, and you force yourself to look at her face. Her eyes are hidden by reflective red lenses – denser than the shades she used to wear, functional rather than fashionable. Her lips are puckered and pressed together, and her hair is a mess, contrasting sharply with the crisp lines of her uniform. A legislerator – not what you would have ever guessed for her. Maybe…maybe she just liked the uniform. ( _Latula_.)

 

The stupid hopefulness of the thought makes you laugh, and those visored eyes turn to you.

 

“Signless,” she says, and you think she still means Kankri.

 

“I don't know what to call you,” you return, and a muscle in her cheek jumps, and you think she might be trying to to cry. Or possibly, Kankri is trying to flatter himself.

 

“Neophyte Redglare,” she tells you, and swings open the door. “Redglare is fine.” _Or Latula_ , you hear unsaid, but you can't tell if it's your voice, hers, or Kankri's. “Come with me. We need to go.”

 

“Where is my family?” You demand. They're all you want, because none of this is their fault, and you need to get them out. She doesn't respond immediately, and you decide that if she's not going tell you, you aren't going to make her job – whatever it is she's come to do – any easier. If anything, actively harder. She seems to realise this, because she sighs, and holds out her hand.

 

“That's what I'm here to show you,” she says, pauses, then adds “if it helps, I'm not supposed to be here. At all. This is all strictly, well…”

 

“Illegal?” You finish dryly, and take her hand, letting her help pull you up. She keeps her hold even when you're both standing, and if weren't for the Disciple, you would be all over the place with pity. The lines between you and Kankri are weak here. “Why, Redglare. This can't be good for your career path.”

 

She doesn't deign to respond to that, and you let it go as she pulls you along until she's certain you'll follow, and releases you. Your family aren't in the cells with you, but that's no comfort indeed, no guarantee.

 

“I didn’t know that would happen,” she tells you abruptly, breaking the silence, “I don’t think _they_ knew that would happen. I thought they were going to _try_ to actually begin to make a difference, to change things, but…” her grip on your hand tightens until you think something might break under the pressure, “…they saw what they wanted to. They pretended like remembering was some amazing thing that would make everything better somehow, make you see things differently. Then you ran, and all they could see was a criminal who had defied them over and over.” Passion flares in her voice, and she’s not telling you everything. Panic twists in your gut.

 

“What else?” you ask, and cant keep the tremble from your voice.

 

She doesn’t tell you, but you’ve reached your destination, as she pulls you up increasingly small staircases, and into a narrow alcove. It’s more of a box, you think, except there are long slits running down the front wall, allowing you glimpses into a room beyond. You press your eye to the crack without prompting, and your stomach clenches up in painful contortions.

 

The alcove looks out onto the Grand Highblood’s hall, the one where you first saw Latula again in this life. The Grand Highblood is once again in his throne, but there are no highbloods with him. Instead, the Psiioniic is struggling on his lap, limply. He has already been fighting, you can see long scratches on his arms. However gently the Grand Highblood may have tried to restrain him, the length and sharpness of his claws have made it impossible for him to do it entirely without injury. You wouldn’t even delude yourself that he’d try to be gentle, except…except you know why he’d single out the Psiioniic. Because you remember Kurloz and Mituna, and it turns your stomach to see it now.

 

You might be colouring what you see with your own feelings, but you cannot imagine the Grand Highblood being gentle. Every movement looks like a farce, and however sick you feel, the Psiioniic, your _dear_ Psiioniic, so rebellious and fierce, has a look on his face that looks a thousand times worse.

 

 _Why are you showing me this_?

 

That is the question you want to ask Redglare. But you cannot pull yourself from the sight of your friend being touched; so _pale_ and so _false_ it makes your stomach churn. You dare not speak, because the Grand Highblood has created a silence so absolute that he might as well have stitched together the lips of all present. And suddenly, as though you _had_ spoken, eyes swivel towards you, and you stumble back, Redglare’s arms flying up and around you to keep you from crashing. You have never felt purple blood for yourself, but you are certain it cannot be any colder than the eyes that just turned on you.

 

“Take me back,” you murmur, and Redglare may not have seen, but she works with him. For him. She knows, and so she rushes you back as quickly as she brought you, back to your cell. You try not to let your mind wander. If he has the Psiioniic, that the Disciple…your Disciple, your beautiful Disciple…and your mother. What would they do with her? What would they do with all of you? Redglare closes the bars behind you, the key turning in the lock. It makes you feel _safe_.

 

“…I’ll bring you more information,” she says after a moment. You turn and look at her, and her face gives you no more answers or emotion than the bricks behind you. She leaves without a response from you, and you still don’t know what you would have told her in any case. At this point, you don’t know whether more information would be a blessing, or a curse.

 

~

 

==> Be you in chains

 

Redglare hasn't even had time to return once before stone-faced guards return, bringing chains with them. You are bolted to the wall, given enough length to move about the cell, but the message is clear, and you are reminded as every motion makes the iron around your wrists jangle.

 

You are not going anywhere.

 

Like a coward, you find solace being cut off from the world. You don't care what the world comes to anymore.

 

You sit on the floor with your legs crossed, a parody of meditation. Your eyes are closed, your hands rest gently on your knees. But your thoughts are a storm you cannot escape, not through sleep or dream or meditation.

 

"Whale!! Aintchu the picture of serenity?"

 

The Condesce's voice is like needles through your skin.

 

"Leave," you tell her, like you have any kind of power. She laughs, condescendingly. Appropriate.

 

"Or just the same pissy brat as alwaves." She stays towering over you, and apparently not all the fight is gone from you yet, because you stand to meet her. It doesn't improve on the height gap much, but it still means something. At least to you.

 

The condesce's smile is more like a sneer now.

 

"Your Disciple is locked up. Meulin." It is absolutely a sneer. "Glub, I can't wait for her memories to set in. The look on her face when she remembers Kankri!"

 

You'd retort, but exactly that has been your fear for too long.

 

"And GH is making a reel good connection with Mituna again," she continues, sensing she's hit a sore spot, "close as clams, those two. They'll be shitting diamonds in no time."

 

So she knows you've been out, but not what you've seen. Because you _know_ that's a lie. It _has_ to be, because the Psiioniic would not give up like that. He can't. You won't believe that. You stay silent, staring at her with bloody eyes, and wonder if even that much red is charging Meenah's memories even now.

 

"What about my mother, Meenah," you begin, but she tuts and waves a finger in your face.

 

"Condesce. You had your chance for Meenahs and Kankris, and you're the one who blew it."

 

"Condesce then." You don't actually have any shits to give. "When is my mother? Where's the Disciple?"

 

The Condesce pouts at you. "I'm not shore you deserve to know." Laughter makes her lips twitch again, "although, it is _hella_ finny hearing you call Porrim mother. Mother! Like she's some kinda lusus!"

 

She is so much more than that, in the way the Disciple is so much more than any one quadrant. But you won't justify yourself to the Condesce. She doesn't deserve your explanation. She must catch onto this, because she grows tired of waiting for the retort that isn't coming, and petulance slips back onto her face. You know, at that point, she will not tell you what she’s done with your mother.

 

If you were stronger, you think, you'd lure her closer, and choke her with your chains. For the Dolorosa, you think, you could. You _should_. But the Condesce does not come closer, and you are not strong. Not really. Not alone.

 

"Why are you doing this?" You ask her as she turns to leave, bored with taunting you. She pauses, and glances back. "I thought...with the pictures, with the others...I thought we were going to find everyone, make...make things different." Your last effort – a shadow of a sermon that no one but her could even begin to understand.

 

The Condesce has pity in her eyes, and you try not to gag as she returns, and freezing fingertips curl about your cheek, cupping it in an almost conciliatory gesture. "I never cared aboat your plans," she tells you, and smiles as she does so. "Wanted the gang back together, shore. But all your carp? Nah man. Shit is still shit. I'm the Empress. My word is coddamned _law_." She pulls away, and slides the bars shit gently behind her. "I wanted you to sea that, reely I did." The lock clicks into place, and she smiles her cold, slick smile again. You refuse to look anywhere but her eyes, and the smile falters.

 

"Maybe if you'd just accepted that like you were meant to - " she kicks the bars viciously " - you wouldn't be here now, huh?"

 

She stalks away. "Think on _that_."

 

You do think. You think long and hard. There's little else to do. You think of when you thought you could change things. You think of the time – not even a night long, where you thought the others recovering their memories would turn the fate of Alternia around. You think about how little you knew. You thought the travelling, the preaching, meant you had seen it all. Now you realise, you've barely seen anything, but what you have seen is the looks in their eyes. They won't stop. You've seen the future in pink and purple irises and it is hard and cold as gemstones. Alternia didn't warp them – it gave them agency.

 

Things would have always ended up this way.

 

~

 

==> Be you, with the last moment of happiness possible for you

 

Torture starts, torture stops. You imagine the Condesce sitting on a throne somewhere, with the luxury of changing her mind on a whim. She doesn't seem to know what to do with you, and you're just about done trying to work out if that's Meenah or the Condesce at work. You're certain neither have any love or pity for you, so in the end you think she simply enjoys being god. No one calls you the Signless anymore. Not here. It's _the Sufferer_ now, and even Redglare, who finds her sparse moments to slip through the gaps to see you, slips up and calls you that sometimes. You suppose it's hard not to, when you are more red than grey these days.

 

She tells you what happened to your mother. Dualscar took her away – a _slave_ , he’d said, Redglare said, and you rage and scream and cry, and remember the uncertainty in his eyes. You pray for the sliver of something good you thought you saw in the lines between Cronus and Orphaner. You pray that your mother reaches it. You wish harder than you’ve ever wished before, that _you_ could reach her. A child’s dream. This is what’s left of your family – the imprisoned Disciple, the abused Psiioniic, the enslaved Rosa, and you. The Signless. The _Sufferer_. The Unworthy, they should call you.

 

It is what happens next that really makes you question the Condesce’s motives. You can see no advantage for her, no real gain for her in her actions – and yet she does it anyway.

 

“Here,” the Condesce says, as she opens the door to your cell. You don't know how long it's been now, only that you bleed and you ache, and Redglare comes less and less. “A treat for you, Sufferer.” She throws a body into the cell, you see the long tangle of black hair and think you'll throw up when abruptly the body moves, and _she's alive_. It's your Disciple and she's hurt, but she's alive, the Condesce is not going to leave her dead body with you. Your Disciple stands, and hurls herself back at the Condesce with a shrill sound within a second, but the cell door is slammed shut, and the Condesce is gone. The Disciple smacks into the bars, her hands tight around the rough metal as she shouts after the Condesce until the Empress is out of sight. At this point your Disciples falls silent, and her hands slip down from the bars. You want to say something to her, but words fail you.

 

This doesn't prove important, however, as the Disciple turns to see you. Her face breaks into a heartbreaking expression, and she throws herself at you, arms tight around your aching body.

 

“Beloved,” is the word she says over and over, “ _beloved_.”

 

You don't deserve it. You don't, but you hug her back anyway, chains hanging down by your sides, long enough for you to move about the cell, but no longer. They are long enough that you can hold her, and for the moment, it is all you care about. “You shouldn't call me that,” you tell her, and she stops immediately, pulling back to stare you in the eyes. She narrows her own, her hands still on your arms.

 

“Why not?” She asks, “It's true. From the day I met you it has been true, no matter how long it took for us both to realise it. You are mine as I am yours, and nothing will change that.” Her gaze softens, and she leans in to press your foreheads together, her breath cool and soft on your face. “What on Alternia could make you think that has changed?”

 

“You're here because of me,” you tell her, “in prison, a criminal…I've lied to you, Disciple.”

 

You've been waiting for this moment, the moment where you tell her everything. “I've been lying to you for so long, and now you're the one paying for it. Because my visions were not just visions, they were memories, and now _they've_ remembered too, and you're going to die because of it…”

 

That is, unless the Grand Highblood had plans worse for her. You remembered the Psiioniic struggling against him and your stomach lurches unpleasantly. Is that the fate that awaits her? Will she _want_ it in the end? Will Meulin finally resurface and see her matesprit ruling the land dwellers and be _thankful_ for his flushed quadrant?

 

“You're going to remember one night,” you tell her, exhausted, “and you're going to hate me for what I've lead you to.”

 

The Disciple looks at you a moment more, confusion clear in her eyes, before it clears, and she sighs. “Oh beloved” she reiterates the endearment determinedly, though it sounds more like she means _idiot_. “Do you mean memories of Beforus?”

 

 _What_?

 

“About Meulin? And Kankri, and everyone else?”

 

_What? What?_

 

She moves to straddle your legs, gently stroking the skin either side of your cuffs. “I got those memories back weeks ago.”

 

_What?_

 

"I don't...I don't understand..."

 

“When I saw the Grand Highblood. Kurloz. It all came back to me at the attack.” A look of anger skirts across her face, “That’s how they caught me off guard. If I’d just stayed _focused_ , if I’d been faster on my feet – ” A frustrated breath escapes her, and she cups your face. It’s the same way the Condesce sometimes touches you, expect with your Disciple you never want her to let go of you. “Oh beloved. I never understood what it was like in your head. Never thought your teachings…well.” Now she just looks sad, and that isn’t a look you want for her. Not now, not ever, no matter the cost.

 

You lean down best you can and she moves up to meet you, your foreheads pressed together. “I thought you’d leave me,” you tell her, and that has her snapping back immediately, looking at you with utter confusion. “Because Meulin was matesprits with Kurloz,” you clarify hastily, “I thought…because of how Kankri was, that you’d…that I’d…”

 

“Beloved, I don’t – ” The Disciple falls silent, and looks at you like you’re stupid and helpless, and all the while even you are not oblivious to the love that burns in her eyes with it. “I am not Meulin. You are not Kankri. And even if we were…knowing what we know, having been though the things we have, _together_ …” her hands rests on your shoulder, thumb stroking back and forth gently, as soothingly as she can manage. “I love you. I’ll follow wherever you go.”

 

“And I you,” you respond, voice cracking suddenly and unexpectedly.

 

“If…if you die…” her own voice aborts, and she closes her eyes, visibly recomposing herself, “ _whatever_ happens, I will not stop. The things you’ve shown me, the things I know now, the things I’ve seen – I will not let it be for nothing, Signless. _My Signless_.” She kisses you, and you float, even in your cell, kissing back hard, kissing back soft, burning the sensations deep into your mind, sealing her words with them, so you can never forget. No matter what happens, this is what you want to last. When all else is gone, when it ends, this will be what you pull forth in your mind, what you think of in the end. “The past is the past,” she breathes against your cheek as you part, “and what I choose to remember of it will be what you took from Beforus, and used to build something beautiful. I chose to follow you knowing _nothing_ of Beforus, and not giving a shit about it either. I don’t need Beforus. I don’t _want_ Beforus. But I will do anything, _anything_ to make your vision of peace real for Alternia.”

 

She curls against you, voice soft, “I’m not Meulin. I don’t want to be. And honestly…I don’t think she’d want to be me. The fighting, the running…”

 

“The lack of quadrants?” You add, surprising yourself and her. She laughs, a startled sound, and the bubble of tears in it sobers you. “None of that matters now anyway.”

 

The Disciple stays quiet after that, and curls up tightly against you as red runs down your cheeks. You memorise the feel of her pressed against you, and try to make it overwhelm the feeling of shackles around your wrists, and the ache in your body. Your eyes slip shut, and you think of your Rosa. You think of the Psiioniic. You think of how you could never have imagined things turning out like this.

 

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

 

_== >Be the rebel legislerator_

 

Why not. There's no Signless to be anymore. You wear his symbol around your neck, and think the Condesce did it on purpose. Made his shackles resemble Kankri’s old quirk, a last _fuck you_ to the troll she pretended to want to work with – for all of a night. Not even that, you think. Meenah never felt strong enough for Kankri is any positive way to save the Signless from the wrath of the Condesce. _You_ didn't step up, and on that point your mind is torn. You cannot be sorry you're still alive. Death scares you – scared you. A second death on Alternia scares you more. But the Disciple stood by him, and she survived. She stood by the troll she loved, and you feel small next to her.

 

You visit her, sometimes, bring her paints and paper and whatever she asks you for. And you strip off your clothes, and let her take out her anger on you. So long as she doesn't touch your face, you don't care. The Disciple seems to realise that if your face is hit, questions are asked. And if questions are asked, you may not come back. She wants you to come back – you don't flatter yourself that she needs you to. You go for your sake…for your guilt.

 

You speak to the Psiioniic too – although you are the only one who calls him that anymore. The _Helmsman_ is the title the Empress bestowed upon him. You had hidden in the same alcove you’d taken the Signless to that first night he’d been in the dungeons. When you’d taken him, you’d seen the Psiioniic forced by the Grand Highblood, called by a name from a life he still won’t tell you if he remembers or not. This time, you had seen the Condesce and Grand Highblood faced against each other, weapons drawn.

 

“ _YOU SHALL NOT TAKE HIM,”_ the Grand Highblood had roared at her, and the Condesce had snarled back, fighting over the Psiioniic who, given half a chance and a half loosened cuff around his wrists, would destroy them both with a single blast. And you have been tempted to loosen those cuffs so many times. But Kankri wasn’t the only troll to worm his way though the memories and cloud the actions of his new self. By the time you get to the Psiioniic he is long gone, being tied down and wired into the ship the Condesce will use herself to lead conquests. Fear of your face drove the Signless away from the Condesce and Grand Highblood, and led to his death. Fear of Mituna’s face kept you from risking all to free the Psiioniic, and led to his entrapment in a life that would make him _wish_ for death.

 

Despite the fight that had preceded the Condesce taking away the Psiioniic (a fight you watched with desperate bated breath, praying, wishing, _hoping_ for them to kill each other or at least to rid Alternia of one or the other) you see and hear nothing more of the Psiioniic from the Grand Highblood, no mention or reminisce. If you did not speak to him in snatches through channels scrambled and encoded far beyond your abilities, you think you’d forget him too. That, you are finding, is not unusual.

 

Ever since the Signless was killed, they all pretend that they never remembered. The Condesce, the Orphaner, the Grand Highblood…they all act like they don't remember their other lives, like this is business as usual. For all the Orphaner had made his small efforts at the beginning, _so like Cronus_ as he tried to wheedle about the Condesce and Grand Highblood, seeing far too much of Meenah and Kurloz in them. But the Orphaner has more sense than Cronus, and he felt the danger pressing in on every side. He slunk back to his ship, carrying on his business as though the entire thing had never happened.

 

At first you think it’s the same instinct that made the Executioner leave. Now you are not so certain. The Orphaner, you think, was happy to forget. To _pretend_. But the Executioner…He couldn't make himself forget. He killed the Signless because his Empress commanded, but the Disciple…the whispers say he was struck with pale love at the sight of her so alone and afraid in the world. And maybe he did feel pale for her. You don't know, you don't talk to him. But you think she represented all he had remembered too. The freedom, the hope – killing her would be killing Horuss, and Meulin, and Beforus all over again. So, unlike his superiors, he refused to forget.

 

You think you admire that.

 

For a time your life is routine. You serve the Grand Highblood, you do your job. You serve an unjust system whilst supporting the Disciple and serving the Signless’ cause, and you think you're getting away with it.

 

Then you enter the Grand Highblood’s hall one night, and find the Orphaner's body face down on the floor, head half crushed and blood trailing up to where the Grand Highblood is painting it onto the wall behind his throne. He throws a book at you without looking, and as it lands heavily in your hands, you see the symbol in blue on the front. You see him smile at you, and you understand. You were not forgotten or forgiven. He was simply waiting for the right punishment for you daring to remember. For daring to believe in something different.

 

You go after Mindfang all the same, because even now, you are still weak. You tell yourself, for a moment, that you’re doing it for the Dolorosa – for the Signless’ mother. In the end it feels too insulting to attach your cowardice to them. But the past will not leave you, even when you meet Mindfang face to face. For all she is absolutely the fiercest of the Gamblignants, her face is still as soft and sweet as Aranea’s ever was, aged gently and elegantly. This is your first look at her face – not on a wanted poster, but with her arm going down Pyralspite’s throat, and her vision 8fold burned out by his flames. She stares back at you, smiles harshly, and you understand that she remembers too. But she will not try to reason with you.

 

You remember Aranea with Meenah, and you think of all the memories the Condesce would keep, those would be the ones. It is with those thoughts that you take Mindfang prisoner, and prepare the noose personally. Vengeance burns in you, vicious and hot and you want them all to suffer. The Condesce has to pay, somehow, in some way. That the remnants of Aranea must die for that to happen is just collateral damage.

 

But…but you forgot that Aranea was always clever.

 

The noose slips around your neck, and she doesn't take her eyes from yours for a single moment. The Signless, you realise, wasn’t the only one to hold onto the past. You have been sucked in by a softer world just as much as him.

 

You forgot she was vicious too.

 

You forgot that you were all vicious, in the end.


End file.
